


and here we are (again and again and again)

by avxry



Category: The Maze Runner (2014)
Genre: Angst, Cute, Happy Ending, M/M, Reincarnation AU, Sad sad sad sad, The Death Cure Spoilers, The Maze Runner Spoilers, The Scorch Trials Spoilers, but there IS a happy ending i promise, five lives, four sads, it is sad, it's cute, minewt, much angst, much much angst
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-11-28
Updated: 2014-12-06
Packaged: 2018-02-27 08:38:13
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 5
Words: 13,906
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2686334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/avxry/pseuds/avxry
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Five glimpses of the many lives of Minho and Newt.<br/>(Or 89 times they got it wrong and 1 time they got it right.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. 1893: Life 77

**Author's Note:**

> This will be the first multi-chapter fic I've finished in a long time! I really hope everyone likes it because I tried really hard to finish it. It's going to be sad but I promise there will be a happy ending. Also it hasn't been beta'd, so let me know if there are any mistakes. Anyway, thanks for reading and I hope you enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prince Newton is nothing like anything Minho expected him to be.

Minho is definitely sure that he's never seen him before, he's never even been in this country before, and he's certain he has never seen him in any other country, because why would he be there, he's the prince  _here_. Prince Newton is nothing like anything Minho expected him to be; his eyes are icy blue but warm and kind, and Minho is simply dazzled by the way the prince's stoic expression is interrupted by the almost imperceptible lilt of his lips, the hint of an honest, humble smirk.   
  
Minho is a simple servant, as much as he hates it. He is the one to bring the prince his dinner and smooth out his bed sheets and toss rose petals on the ground His Highness walks upon. Okay, the part about the rose petals is a slight exaggeration, but Minho is just waiting for the order.   
  
Minho is handed a silver platter with a hearty breakfast laid out on it, along with tea, of course, at eight o'clock in the morning, the time Minho usually goes to bed. His schedule had needed drastic adjustments, but at the time, he had also needed appropriate living arrangements.   
  
Minho takes the breakfast up to the prince, keeping his head down and trying to avoid thinking about how good the food looks ( he hasn't eaten because who  _actually_  wakes up this early). He knocks quietly on the door to Prince Newton's quarters. He gets in return a loud groan, an even louder thump, and a glimpse of the prince unprepared.  
  
"Too bloody early to be doing anything," the blond grumbles. With a rub of his eyes, he adds, "Come in. Put the breakfast on the table, thanks."   
  
Minho finds that he has to catch his breath because if he thought that the prince was gorgeous from his original glance, he isn't sure how to classify this type of beauty. The boy (around Minho's age, somehow) has an incredible example of bed hair atop his head, a bright shade of blond, tousled and rumpled as the clothes he wore to bed the night previous. There is an indentation from either the sheets or pillows across his left cheek, his eyes are swollen and half-closed, and his shoulders are slumped with the remnants of sleep still lingering.   
  
Minho, already prepped for his very first day on the job, places the breakfast on the table as directed and begins changing the sheets on the rather large four-poster bed belonging to the prince.   
  
Prince Newton removes himself from the room to change, barely closing the door to the bathroom as he goes. He calls, "I'm supposed to apologize for my appearance and all that, but honestly, you seem as tired as I am."   
  
Minho bites back his instinctual conversational tendencies and says, "Yes, Your Highness."   
  
The prince groans. "It's too early for that. I just want to eat in peace and get a nap in before my father forces me to interact with other members of my family."   
  
Minho smirks to himself, finding that he could be serving a much more intolerable prince. Daring as he is, he puts his job at stake by making conversation. "Don't like 'em much?"  
  
The prince, still in his bathroom, sighs. "No. I don't. I wish I did."  
  
"Why?"  
  
"Why don't I like them, or why do I wish I did?"  
  
"Both."  
  
"I don't like them because they're uptight and rude. I wish I liked them because then they would like me, and it would all be easy. Terrible. But easy."   
  
Minho begins stretching the new sheet across the mattress. "How can they not like you?"  
  
"They think I'm a bloody lunatic for  _caring_." A scoff resonates from the other room. "Isn't that what I'm supposed to do?"  
  
"Evidently not," Minho mumbles, loud enough to be heard but quiet enough to show that he knows he is very far out of line.   
  
Prince Newton doesn't seem to mind. "Evidently not."   
  
Minho continued fixing the bed, flattening out the duvet (a deep, crimson red that Minho thinks he likes, now that he thinks about it) and fluffing the pillows against the headboard. He has his back to the prince as he walks out of the bathroom.   
  
The blond says, "I like you. You don't ask me how I would like my sheets to be put on my bed."  
  
Minho finishes and turns around as he replies, "As far as I know, there's only one way, and that is on the bed."   
  
"I've tried telling them that, but --"  
  
The prince stops mid-sentence, looking at Minho with wide eyes. The boy's lips part a little, leaving a slit for his small inhale at the sight of his newest servant. Honestly, he's had attractive servants before, but there is something about this one --  _he can't place it but it's so familiar, so much like home, not the word but the feeling, that ball dropping in the pit of his stomach, almost as if he missed a step on the stairs_  -- that makes him halt. Minho's dark eyes catch him off guard. He has never been particularly partial to brown eyes, but  _his_  . . . They were like something he had never seen before, and there was this little smile on the corner of his lips, giving him a playful-but-shy-but-confident aura. Minho was a center of gravity, and he was being pulled in.   
  
On the other hand, Minho is no more stunned than he was before by the beauty of the prince. More accustomed to the continual shock, he says, "Prince Newton?"  
  
Shaken out of his trance by Minho's interruption, the prince says, "Newt. Call me Newt. Newton was my uncle's name."   
  
"Of course, Your Highness," Minho smirks, rather enjoying the fact that the prince -- Newt -- had deigned to introduce himself informally.   
  
After a moment, Newt replies, "This is typically the part where you tell me your name."  
  
"Minho."   
  
"Hello Minho."   
  
"Hello, Prince."   
  
"Don't call me that."  
  
"Why not?"  
  
"I don't know."   
  
He doesn't know, not exactly, but it must have something to do with that feeling in his gut that's telling him that Minho is something special, not something below him, definitely not someone who should be calling him  _Prince_  as if Newt were any more important than him.   
  
Minho leaves soon after. Newt requests that Minho be his only personal servant.   
  
~~**~~  
  
Newt encourages Minho to sneak into his quarters when everyone believes them both to be sleeping. They often talk about nothing in particular, maybe something idiotic one of Newt's relatives said, maybe something about Minho's family back in his native country, maybe something entirely unspectacular, but always something.   
  
Minho has had far too much trouble than he likes keeping himself from taking Newt's hand as they lie there quietly.  _He's not supposed to, it's not right, but oh god, he thinks he loves him, he thinks he does, he thinks he does, he knows he does._    
  
Minho becomes the singular thing that Newt revolves around. Newt can feel him in his bones when he's not there, can taste him with every breath of air, his fingertips are permanently scarred from that one time he accidentally touched Minho's cheek as they hid in the broom closet near the kitchen because they made a game of stealing celery from the cook (all of it returned later, relatively unharmed).   
  
They fall in love.   
  
It isn't just the kind of love that keeps them coming back to that dark room every night to talk, it's the kind of love that keeps them blushing when their eyes meet across the room, the love that sends searing warmth up their arms when their hands brush lightly, the love that puts bashful smiles on their lips when they restrain themselves from combining their grins, the love that reaches down to their toes and ricochets up to their throats and threatens to come out as words.   
  
They swallow it.   
  
Nothing is ever said. They circle each other like sharks with softened teeth, big devilish grins, but every time one of them tries to confess, it never works.   
  
Minho thinks, one night,  _This is it._ Nothing will stop him, not this time.   
  
"Father is sending me into battle."   
  
 _Except that_.   
  
"What?"  
  
"You heard me."  
  
"When?"  
  
"Tomorrow."  
  
"No."  
  
"Yes."   
  
"He can't make you go."   
  
"Yes, he can. He's already done it."   
  
"I'll confront him myself, he can't do that, not if you don't want --"  
  
"Shut up, Minho," Newt says, malice laced in his tone. "Just shut up. It won't work."   
  
There is silence. There is a sigh, a pinprick of a tear. There is quiet breathing, someone takes someone's hand, no one knows who does what. Minho tries, he does, he really tries to make himself say it like he swore to himself he would, but he just can't, not after this. Newt has plenty to worry about, and such news seems very minuscule right now.   
  
Minho thinks he mumbles something along the lines of, "I don't want you to go." He can't tell.   
  
Newt leaves for battle the next morning.  
  
He doesn't come back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Okay, firstly, it's un-beta'd, so let me know if you see errors (I know people say that and don't really mean it, but I do because I can't stand grammatical errors so really, let me know).  
> Secondly, in this whole fic, Newt has blue eyes. I realize that it's inaccurate according to the movie, and I didn't know that until I had finished the first four chapters. My sincere apologies! I tried to make it so that it was mostly canonical (except for the whole reincarnation thing, y'know). I also think I remember it being mentioned in the book that Newt has blue eyes, but I can't be sure, so I'll just pretend that he has blue eyes because it's an AU even though I actually just went with it. Sorry for the inaccuracy!  
> Lastly, thanks for reading, and I promise it gets happier (after a while..)!


	2. 1934: Life 79

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> The world is in black and white, but he is painting color into it with every breath.

Newt had never wanted to move to America anyway. "The land of opportunities," as they said.  _Wrong_. Everything is absolutely dreadful because of that  _stupid_  stock market crash. Newt listens to the radio and reads the paper; the officials are calling it The Great Depression, and how accurate it is.   
  
Everything is gloomy. Even the bright colors dull into something bland. Everything fades into another shade of gray. Maybe that's just Newt's imagination, but if that's true, it is also everyone else's imagination.   
  
Newt's mother, luckily, kept her job during the beginning, but his father was not so fortunate. Newt doesn't have to be formally informed that the money situation is bad, worse than bad, the sort of worse-than-bad that means Newt has to go without dinner a lot. Newt understands, he really does, he knows it's not directly anyone's fault, but he has every right to be upset.   
  
Stupid  _America_. They should have stayed in England.   
  
Newt is out for his regular evening stroll, hands tucked into his pockets, when he meets him, the boy with dark hair and dark eyes and smooth skin and a smile too wide for the empty street.   
  
They run into each other -- literally. Newt is looking down at the papers strewn over the streets when he slams into someone walking in the opposite direction.   
  
"Sorry --"  
  
"Oh, sorry --"  
  
They look up and something happens. Neither one of them really know what, but it is certainly something, yes, something indeed. The other boy smiles -- no, he  _grins_ , he grins something that Newt hasn't seen in a long time, not with everything that's happened lately, and it is  _so_  refreshing and  _wow_ , it's dazzling.   
  
The other boy laughs, ducking his head a little. "Um, sorry. Didn't see you."   
  
"Yeah, me either."   
  
The boy's eyebrows raise. "You're English?"  
  
Newt nods.   
  
A great laugh explodes from the boy's chest and Newt finds himself smiling right along with him, as if he is desperately trying to understand a joke that went right over his head. The boy says, "Hell of a time to move over here."   
  
Newt chuckles, "I tried to tell my parents. They don't listen to me."   
  
"I know the feeling," the kid says, nodding a little, his brightness looking incredibly out of place in the dreary environment. The world is in black and white, but he is painting color into it with every breath. He continues, "I'm Minho."  
  
"Newt," Newt offers.   
  
Minho says, "I know it's getting dark, but you wanna walk around? I don't have anywhere better to be."   
  
Newt knows that really, he should get home, crime has risen exceptionally lately, but something keeps him from denying, something in the sound of Minho's voice that's almost like music, and if it is music, he has definitely been listening to the wrong genre because this is clearly the right one.   
  
"Yeah, sure."   
  
Off they go.   
  
~~**~~  
  
They are quick friends. Minho asks about England and Newt asks about Minho. Newt finds himself spending all his free time with his new friend, never wanting to be anywhere else and always wanting to be right there when he is.   
  
They talk and talk and talk until there is almost nothing to talk about anymore, but there is always something, always. They are writing a story and they never run out of words. Newt is convinced that Minho is hiding an arsenal of small-talk topics in his back pockets because  _damn_  he is good at it. Newt could talk to him for hours on end, and sometimes he does.   
  
But Minho is good at other talks besides small-talks. He is serious sometimes. He casually contemplates the universe and everything cramped up inside it, and he wonders if it really is a small world, and if it is, why does it always feel so empty? Newt knows that that Minho wants to be some type of government official because he has always been told that he is a good leader, which Newt has no trouble believing at all.   
  
Newt often wonders (worries) if Minho finds him dull. He never really says much, just allows himself to be entirely washed away by Minho's gravity pulling in the tide.   
  
On the other hand, Minho is the most fascinating person Newt has ever encountered. He dreams big and talks with his hands and pretends he doesn't like coffee so he doesn't have to spend money in front of Newt when he knows that Newt doesn't have any.   
  
They always walk around the same block, day after day. They sometimes sit in the cute little cafe on the corner between their two houses until the manager sends them out because they don't buy anything. Occasionally their hands brush, and flames lick up Newt's fingertips, sending him spiraling into some sort of warmth that he just can't place, but he doesn't mind all that much. It's actually rather soothing. He often thinks that maybe Minho wouldn't  _quite_  mind if he entwined their fingers.   
  
Minho sometimes looks at him as if he is the only monument worth looking at. He never glances, he is never so fleeting. When his eyes land on Newt, they really do land, and they park there, whether they're on his own eyes or his skin or his hair or his hands or his cheeks or his lips (Newt wishes . . .).   
  
Newt's parents see him with Minho. They speculate.   
  
"Who's that boy you were with earlier?" his mother asks, sitting at the dinner table with papers and a calculator, her usual state recently.   
  
Newt blushes furiously. "Minho. We met a while ago."   
  
"He seems nice."   
  
"He is."   
  
"You should have him over for dinner tomorrow night."   
  
Newt looks at her questioningly, because he knows that dinner is become a bit of a luxury, and to offer to share it with another person is entirely foreign.   
  
Newt shakes his head, "No, that's okay."   
  
"Newt," his mother says, "you can have your friend over for dinner."  
  
Newt almost protests again, but the tilt of his mother's eyebrows tells him that she will not back down. He is secretly pleased.   
  
He tells Minho the next day on their usual walk. "My parents said you're invited over for dinner tonight," he says. "They saw you yesterday."   
  
Minho looks at him with concerned eyes because he knows. "Are you sure? I mean, I don't want to --"  
  
"Minho," Newt says, trying to copy his mother's tone, "my mum said it was fine."   
  
Minho looks over at him, shining eyes as usual. A smile creeps up on his lips as he says, "That sounds lovely." Newt grins back at him and wonders why exactly he feels as if Minho meeting his parents is some sort of initiation.   
  
~~**~~  
  
Newt's parents had gone through probably too much trouble to fix a nice dinner, but it certainly is nice. Minho sniffs the air as he walks in and smiles reflexively. "Something smells delicious."  
  
"My dad is a pretty good cook," Newt says with pride. Minho notices and continued to compliment it as they walk to the kitchen. Newt really adores the fact that Minho wants him to feel good about his family. Newt really adores Minho.   
  
Through the course of dinner, Minho acts as if it is the best food he has ever eaten (Newt knows for a fact that it isn't, because he's heard a lot of Minho's stories) and Newt's parents simply glow with every compliment.   
  
Newt realizes that Minho is the type of person every parent loves their child to be with. Newt realizes that Minho is the type of person that he would love to be with.   
  
~~**~~  
  
Newt almost cries, almost, when his parents tell them that they're moving back to England. He also almost screams, almost punches something, almost refuses to go. He almost does a lot of things, but he really does nothing but say, "Okay."   
  
And it hurts. It isn't because he's grown to like America. It still seems a bit like a dump, to him. It's because  _Minho_.  _What will he do without Minho?_    
  
He had grown to desperately rely on his best friend. He had grown to desperately fall in love with him, and  _oh God_ , he really doesn't want to leave.   
  
He tells him on a Monday, two days before he leaves, two days after he finds out.   
  
"What?" Minho asks. He deflates. His usual grin melts from his face, his eyebrows furrow in what looks like sadness but Newt refuses to determine the difference between sadness and confusion because one of those options is right and he has a bad feeling that the right one is the one that would hurt him the most.   
  
"I have to go back to England," Newt repeats. "Mum and Dad finally saved up enough money to get out of here."  
  
"When?"  
  
"Wednesday."   
  
Minho looks at him, those eyes still as stunning as they were the first time they met on that lonely day so long ago, so long before Newt realized his heart had never really been whole to begin with. Now he was having to realize that it would never really be whole at all.   
  
Newt and Minho spend the whole day walking until Newt has to go home to pack up his few possessions. He wants every second of his last full day (tomorrow) to be spent with Minho.   
  
And it is. They get into minor trouble, because really, none of it will hurt Newt, and Minho obviously doesn't care as long as Newt is having a good time, and he is, as much as he can. That day is fantastic.   
  
Oh, Newt loves him.   
  
The next day Minho meets Newt outside his house to say goodbye before Newt gets on the plane to go back to where he came from.   
  
Newt swears he sees tears in Minho's eyes as the other boy pulls him into the tightest hug he remembers receiving. Newt hugs him back, dropping his bag on the sidewalk beside him and wrapping his arms around him. Newt resents himself for never telling Minho how he feels, but he also is convinced that Minho knows, just like he knows that Minho feels the same about him.   
  
Newt leaves. Minho stays. They never see each other again. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So I thought it would be fun to write about them meeting during The Great Depression in America. At least he didn't die this time.   
> Thanks for reading, and as always, it hasn't been beta'd, so let me know of any errors!


	3. 1984: Life 82

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "You're my hero," Minho says and he means it because the boy hands over his drink and it's warm, not the coffee but his hand, and their fingers brush and they both just look at each other for a moment, trying to figure out what they're missing.

Minho sits in his 7 a.m. psychology class with his eyes closed. The  _very frustrating and much disliked_  professor, Mr. Conway, decided to reschedule his usually afternoon class to the morning to accommodate his own social calendar.  
  
Minho hates his class anyway. He is majoring literature, so  _why_  does he have to take psychology? So far nothing in this class has helped him learn anything about literature.   
  
Minho has dozed off so much that he doesn't even notice when a new kid sits down in the seat beside him. He is awoken from his trance by a chuckle. "D'you want my coffee?"  
  
Minho opens his eyes in a blurry haze. He looks over and squints, desperately trying to figure out where he's seen this boy before. His vision clears and he sort of stops, sort of realizes that this guy is attractive, and he doesn't even find boys attractive but he's something else. Minho swallows.   
  
"Hello?"  
  
Minho shakes his head and says, "Sorry, what?"  
  
The kid (with perfect blond hair and  _stunning_  blue eyes and  _oh my God_ ) laughs, sounding like music and Minho finds himself smiling. "I asked if you wanted my coffee. I haven't drunk any of it. You seem tired."   
  
"You're my hero," Minho says and he means it because the boy hands over his drink and it's warm, not the coffee but his hand, and their fingers brush and they both just look at each other for a moment, trying to figure out what they're missing.   
  
Minho takes a sip of the coffee and almost chokes, definitely not expecting the sensation of  _too much sugar_  in the hot liquid. His eyes water and he hears the boy laughing at him. He glares as best as he can.   
  
"Sorry," the blond says. "Should've warned you. I like a lot of sugar."   
  
"You don't say?" Minho replies sarcastically, and the boy giggles and Minho can't bring himself to glare any longer because that little laugh was so cute and endearing. "I prefer it black."   
  
"No sugar or milk at all?"  
  
"Nope."  
  
"I'll keep that in mind for the next class we have in the morning."  
  
"Speaking of classes in the morning," Minho says, putting the coffee down because he absolutely cannot drink that, "I've never seen you here before."   
  
"I usually just find a morning class to sit in on," he shrugs. "I've got nothing better to do."  
  
"You mean sleep?" Minho gives him a look as if he's crazy (he definitely is if he wants to get up at seven o'clock in the morning to listen in on a  _psychology_  class).   
  
"I don't sleep much."   
  
"You should try it, it's much nicer than this class."   
  
"But this class sounds interesting," the kid says optimistically. "I saw the announcement for it this morning. It's the only morning class I haven't been to yet." 

  
"It's usually in the afternoon," Minho explains. "Hence my drowsy appearance and grumpy attitude."   
  
"You don't seem very grumpy."  
  
"Wait until he starts talking."   
  
Minho finds that his newest friend is much more than capable when it comes to utilizing sarcasm. In the back of the class, they sit making snide remarks throughout the entire lecture, giggling to themselves. Minho realizes that he would really like to be friends with this kid outside of class, and maybe he should see if he wants to spend breakfast with him.   
  
The class ends after an hour, and the two of them rise from their seats, Minho considerably more awake than he was when he walked into the class.   
  
"So," he says, "want to grab some breakfast?"   
  
The blond looks at him regretfully. "My real class is actually starting in a few minutes."  
  
"Oh."   
  
"Sorry."  
  
"No, it's okay."   
  
The two of them sort of stare at their shoes, both of them wanting to do something because whatever this is feels really right, as if the two brightest stars in the sky had aligned and they were standing right there in the psychology class, speechless and nervous.   
  
Then the other boy says, "But I can do lunch," and Minho grins as wide as he has ever grinned before and nods and can't say anything but an ecstatic, "Yeah."   
  
"I'll meet you in the courtyard at eleven?" the boy asks.   
  
Minho smiles and nods. As he is about to leave, he turns back and says, "Hey, wait! I, uh, I never got your name."   
  
The boy gives him this dazzling smile and says, "Newt."   
  
"I'm Minho."   
  
"See you later, Minho."   
  
~~**~~  
  
Minho shows up early for lunch, and finds himself embarrassed at being so nervous about meeting up with Newt because really, they're just friends, he's just a boy that he met in class and had a few laughs with. But Minho feels something in his stomach or maybe his chest or maybe his throat that gives him the idea that maybe it isn't so simple, maybe there's something he's missing, he's definitely missing something.   
  
He finds himself both mortified and  _so_  happy when he sees Newt in the courtyard before him. They are both half an hour early, and suddenly Minho isn't as embarrassed anymore, and Newt obviously is as nervous as Minho feels, but their smiles melt any ice that would have had to have been broken between them.   
  
They walk off campus for lunch, finding a nice little cafe where they have warm drinks and sandwiches and Minho finds himself really really  _re_ _ally_ liking Newt. Newt's eyes stare at him as if he is sparkling and the ends of their sneakers touch under the table and they both lean toward each other while talking even though the conversation isn't that interesting but honestly, Newt could talk about toasters and Minho would be fascinated.   
  
The corners of their lips never lose the lilt of a smile even when nothing is funny, and if anyone were to look closely at them with an outside point of view, it probably would be very obvious that they are falling in love with every syllable they speak.  
  
They learn each other's coffee orders and favorite colors and shoe sizes and majors and minors and freckle patterns and class schedules. They bring each other breakfast and have inside jokes and stand too closely together in lunch lines. They are poetic and beautiful and scared.  
  
Newt, majoring in chemistry, tells Minho about atoms and gases and chemical formulas, and before Newt, Minho never cared about any of that, but how can he not, especially when Newt's eyes light up like stars with fascination and a grin forms on his lips when he talks about just how  _awe-inspiring_  water is?   
  
And Minho reads Newt poems and classic novels as they sit against the wall outside the east corridor, their sides touching, and sometimes Newt puts his head in Minho's lap as he listens to Minho read. Sometimes Minho absentmindedly twirls Newt's hair in his fingers as he speaks, his tongue forming all of the Victorian-age dialogue flawlessly.   
  
They experience a lot of "sometimes" things. Sometimes they almost say something that would be a bit too personal, a bit too emotional, a bit too romantic for their completely platonic friendship. Sometimes they think about holding hands and lying beside each other at night, just talking and being close together, sometimes they almost do. Sometimes they almost say it ("I love you") and sometimes they do, in a whisper, all alone when no one can hear but the sky and the walls, but maybe it will travel through the electric currents in the air and reach the other. It doesn't.   
  
Newt hears the news on a Monday, from the dean of the school, as he waits in the courtyard for Minho to return from his parents' house. He had visited for the weekend (Newt was dreadfully bored) and was due to come back at noon.   
  
He never does.   
  
The dean says it had been a drunk high school kid in a minivan full of other drunk high school kids. She says there was a bag in the passenger seat with a rose and a tag that read, "I am in love with you," and Newt crumples to the ground against a bench. The dean says she is very sorry for his loss and then leaves him to be with himself for a while but Newt hates her for it.   
  
He doesn't want to be with himself, he wants to be with Minho, but he can't because Minho will never be anywhere again, not really. Newts goes back to his dorm room and cries. He never cries but he does this time because Minho said he was in love with him and he died wondering if Newt loved him too.   
  
Newt does. Newt loves him so much.   
  
He goes to Minho's funeral in his best suit, his eyes puffy, and he just can't bring himself to touch the closed casket, and he can't remember what the last words they shared were, but he hopes they were monumental. He knows they weren't.   
  
The service is small and respectful. Newt shakes the hands of Minho's parents, tells them that Minho was his best friend, and they tell him that the whole time Minho was visiting he never stopped talking about him. Newt finds that that doesn't comfort him.   
  
Newt places a single rose on Minho's gravestone and never looks back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm sorry. I'm so sorry. I warned you.   
> As usual, not beta'd, you know the drill. Thanks for reading!


	4. 2024: Life 86

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Minho will always come back to him.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter contains major spoilers for all three books in The Maze Runner series (it doesn't include the prequel). It isn't essential to the plot if you just want to skip it so that you can still be surprised at the end of The Death Cure (which was fantastic by the way, am I right?). Also, the dialogue won't be verbatim because I can't remember exactly what was said and I don't want to have to go through all the books to find these certain scenes (so I'll hide behind the excuse that it's an AU). Anyway, on with the reading!

It's dark in the box (box, cage, room, elevator, whatever it is, he can't tell, it's too dark and he's more focused on keeping himself calm right now), and hot and crowded. There are stacks of something in there with him, but it's pitch black and he can't see. He tries to search his mind for something to grasp onto, something to anchor him to reasoning so that he doesn't go crazy, but the file folders in his brain have been emptied. He finds nothing that will help him, not even a name.   
  
He has no idea where he came from, where he is, where he is going, who he is, who sent him here, or who he is going to meet when this box stops moving, and he is scared. But he breathes.  _In and out, in and out, in and out_. He needs to keep breathing, he needs to think.   
  
He tries to isolate certain facts, things that he knows for sure. 1) He is in a box. 2) He doesn't know why. 3)He is surrounded by somethings. 4)He doesn't know where he is going. 5)The box is made of metal, obviously, because of the screeching noise (he feels as if that should mean something, as if the metal should be a clue about something [technology of the people who put him here, maybe?] but it isn't and it infuriates him).   
  
He stops making the list of what he knows because it turns into a list of things he doesn't know, and that list would go on forever.   
  
The box stops in a sudden, abrupt movement. He crouches down low, braces himself for anything, he is prepared, he thinks. He grabs something sort of soft and sort of solid at the same time, very smooth, and decides to throw it when he sees something.   
  
A bright light surrounds him and in a flurry of panic, he shields his eyes from the burning sensation and throws the object in a random direction, hoping that it made impact with the threat.   
  
He hears a squeal, then a groan, then boisterous laughter. He slowly adjusts his eyes to the bright lighting and sees the last thing he actually expects: a relatively small group of boys huddled around the box he was still crouched in, guffawing as if he had just done the funniest thing in the world. He stares at them suspiciously, then stands.   
  
"You shank!" some kid screams from the back. "You coulda taken my bloody eye out!"   
  
Neither of them sees the humor in this situation. The kid is still clutching his eye and The Nameless One is still terrified.   
  
His voice is scratchy when he asks, "Where am I?"  
  
"You're in the Glade," a different boy replies. He is tall with a shaved head and dark skin. He stands like a leader. "Now up, come on, greenie. Get outta there. We gotta get the supplies."   
  
Nameless One (or greenie? he's not sure) is helped onto the stone of the Glade by some other boys as the boy who told him to get out jumps inside. He starts handing off boxes. Then he turns to the boy helping Nameless One.   
  
"Gally," he says, "show him around a little. Then make sure Newt isn't gonna kill him."   
  
Nameless One shivers.  _Kill him?_  Surely not. And who is Newt anyway? Nameless One assumes that it's the kid he hit with the weapon. At a better glance, he sees the weapon, expecting something advanced and maybe even plastic or metal -- but it's food.  _Banana,_  his mind supplies. His cheeks flame red at finding out that he used a  _banana_  as a weapon. At least it had worked, a little.   
  
The boy named Gally turns to him. "What's your name?"  
  
"Uh . . ."   
  
The kid shrugs. "You'll remember soon enough."   
  
Then Gally shows Nameless One around a bit, mostly by standing in one spot and pointing, but Nameless One gets the gist. It angers him even more to find that he has a good memory (he has already memorized where everything is in the Glade and the names of those he has met) because if his memory is so great, why can't he remember anything of importance? He scowls.   
  
"Hey, Newt!" Gally calls just as he finishes describing the Homestead. "Alby wanted me to make sure you won't kill the greenie!"   
  
 _Alby_. Nameless One files that away.   
  
Newt turned around, an angry expression in his face, but Nameless One had to catch his breath because something about Newt that makes him stop in his tracks. It clears his thoughts like an eraser. Those bright blue eyes glisten with annoyance but they are beautiful nonetheless, and he finds himself drowning, just a little bit, because he isn't quite sure what it is about him that makes him so stunning but there is something, and he knows that he  _has_  to know this boy, he simply has to. He smiles to himself a little.   
  
 _Minho_.   
  
He doesn't think it's a coincidence that he remembers his name when he sees Newt.   
  
~~**~~  
  
Newt is a stubborn shank (Minho isn't sure when he starts using the slang, but it happens), but he comes around. He begins to be friendly, even giving Minho a polite smile, and Minho is so proud of himself that he forgets to drink his water supplied by Frypan (the cook who is actually very good at what he does, but no one tells him that -- they don't have to). Newt shares his and Minho feels something in his stomach that probably isn't the food.   
  
Minho discovers that Newt is not a happy person (how could anyone  _really_  be happy when they had been kidnapped and placed in this hell? Minho finds a way, sometimes). He sees Newt glaring at the walls of the Maze as if he can burn them down by eye contact.   
  
Minho decides to be a runner. He hates being so idle (working in the fields isn't necessarily idle, but it might as well be) and he wishes he could cheer Newt up while he goes off in the Maze. The blond boy always seems so sad when he comes back.   
  
Minho becomes a runner very easily. Everyone had begun to trust him immediately, anyway, and Minho naturally acts like a leader. He meets up with Newt after he is accepted.   
  
"Did you hear the news?" he asks with a grin.   
  
"Why would you do that?" Newt turns on him angrily, his eyebrows narrowing.   
  
Minho is confused, to say the least. "What?"  
  
"You can't be a runner!"  
  
"Why not?" Minho is a little offended now. Who does Newt think he is, telling Minho what he can and can't do?  
  
"You could get hurt!" Newt exclaims, throwing his hands out. "You could get trapped in there, you could die, do you not realize that?"  
  
"Of course I do!" Minho fires back. "I can't stand not doing anything! I have to get us out of here!"  
  
"What makes you think you can do any of it?" Newt questions. "What makes you think you'll be so much better at mapping the bloody Maze than the rest of us?"  
  
"I don't," Minho says, lowering his voice. He takes a breath. "I just can't work the fields like I've been doing. I know it's important, but it's not working toward getting us out. I need to work on getting us out." He pauses again, letting Newt calm himself down for another moment. He continues, "I'll even follow you around. I'll let you watch me like a baby so I don't get hurt." Minho feels triumphant at working that in there because that is exactly what he wants anyway.   
  
Newt watches him carefully. Then his features soften. "Fine. But if you die, I'll kill you."  
  
~~**~~  
  
They run through the Maze together and Newt finds that Minho is a natural. He relaxes a little.   
  
A Griever greets them on their third day out. They round a corner and not four feet away is the monster. Newt has never been very good at facing Grievers. He always froze for a moment before he could think of anything. But Minho doesn't even have to think about it before grabbing Newt's hand and taking off in the opposite direction, making turns and twists and checking behind him every second. He outsmarts the creature, confuses it, and Newt is in awe by how under control Minho keeps himself.   
  
They run back into the Glade after escaping and Newt is so stunned that he latches onto Minho's arm, both of them breathing heavily and drenched in sweat. Minho lets out a chuckle, terrified himself, and leans into Newt.   
  
Newt decides to never run alone again. He will always be beside Minho because he knows Minho will protect him.   
  
~~**~~  
  
Minho hurts his ankle one day, after months of running with Newt. Alby has to restrain him (literally) to keep him from running the next couple weeks. Running had become his only goal in the Glade, and he is practically lost without it. Alby will not give in.   
  
Newt almost asks if he can stay with Minho while he recovers, but in his mindset, he sees it as himself being weak, and he cannot stand for that. He keeps running, and though he knows he convinced himself to do it, he still feels weak for even considering quitting. He hates this entire place anyway, and it only intensifies when Minho isn't running with him. It makes everything seem so lonely and empty and hopeless. The walls of the Maze, hundreds of feet tall, tower above him day after day, and he can't help but feel like a bird in a cage (one day he remembers a line from a story he must have read before he was put here:  _the caged bird sings with fearful trill of things unknown but longed for still and his tune is heard on the distant hill for the caged bird sings of freedom_  but it doesn't help him, it just restates what he already knows, and that's useless to him so it only makes him angry).   
  
He wants a way out --  _any_  way out. So he takes one.   
  
Just days before Minho is fit to run again, Newt hits his lowest bottom. Out in the maze, he decides to do it, to just end it, because this place isn't even worth living in anymore, this air isn't even worth breathing anymore.   
  
He climbs up one of the walls. He wants to get to the top, but that's impossible, so he settles on halfway. He thinks it should be high enough. He could drop himself off the wall and land with disastrous results and that is exactly what he wants. He wants to feel that pain because it's something new and lately all he's been feeling is rage.   
  
Before he jumps, something in his mind keeps trying to convince him to just carefully climb down and go back to the Glade, get some water, maybe eat something, and visit Minho.  _Minho_. That's what it is, he knows this is the part of his brain that has taken after Minho, because the parts of his brain that are fully his own are telling him to jump and he doesn't need Minho anyway, Minho would be far better off without having to drag him around all the time and worry about him. He could get so much more mapping done without Newt beside him. Minho would get himself and the other Gladers out, just like he set out to do. Newt is just a nuisance.  
  
He jumps.   
  
~~**~~  
  
One of the other runners, Ben (much newer than Minho or Newt but he has been here a while) finds him and hauls him back to the Glade. Newt is unconscious but breathing, and Minho thanks whoever might be listening when he finds out that Newt's heart is still beating.   
  
Newt broke both wrists, his left forearm, and his left leg, but when he wakes up, he doesn't see it as a blessing that that was the only damage done. He screams. He fights. He cries. He probably hits Minho in the face ten times but he can't bring himself to care because  _he shouldn't be around to care about anything anymore_.   
  
Minho, the stoic rock-to-lean-upon, acts as if Newt only fell while running until everyone leaves. Then he contorts his face into the oddest and scariest mixes of anger and sadness. He yells at Newt for doing something so stupid and he cries, just a little, because he can't stand the fact that Newt thought suicide was a better answer than coming to him.   
  
"You listen to me, shank," he says, pointing with shaking hands and watery eyes. "You  _never_  do anything like this again. You never scare me like that. You could have died, and I know that's what you were going for, but I don't think you understand what that really means. We need you here. I need you here. And you can't just take the shucking easy way out when it gets tough."   
  
Newt wants to scream back at him, but he's tired. He just stares, clenching his jaw. He tries to be angry because that's what feels right but really all he feels is sorry. He's so shucking sorry. The worst part is that he's not even sorry that he did it, he's sorry that Minho has to deal with it. He should have thought that before. But he's selfish and he knows that and he knows that Minho deserves better so he tries.   
  
Minho stays with him that night.   
  
~~**~~   
  
Months and months later, Newt is completely healed excluding his leg. He can't be a runner anymore and part of him is reluctantly relieved. He allows himself to let out a sigh before working his way up to the top beside Alby. Newt isn't the official co-leader, but everyone considers him as such.   
  
He misses Minho during the days but he knows that Minho will come back. Minho will always come back to him.   
  
Until one day, he doesn't.   
  
And neither does Thomas or Alby. Those three are Newt's only friends and he almost loses it when the walls close. His heart starts beating abnormally and his face is permanently contorted into some form of terror (he's not sure which but this is definitely the worst kind) and his knees wobble and he almost falls to the grassy floor of the Glade before someone (Chuck) grabs his shoulder.   
  
Part of Newt thinks it's over. He thinks Minho is dead. He's never coming back, he broke his promise. But part of him holds a fierce kind of faith that no, Minho is not dead, Minho is smart and careful and fast, shuck,  _he's fast_ , and he can do this, he can make it out. Newt doesn't know what he believes but he hopes he believes Minho will return.   
  
Newts finds a way to compose himself. Alby isn't here and someone needs to calm these shanks down, so he takes the job. Inside he is screaming, but outside he is calmly giving orders, spreading a calm over the Glade because no one else can do it. He tells Frypan to fix supper and when everyone is done eating, he tells them that it's a tragic loss (he doesn't want to think of it as a loss, because  _they can't be dead_ ) but that they will have to continue as they have.   
  
No one sleeps well that night.   
  
In the morning, the walls of the Maze open up and Newt has talked himself out of any hope he might have had. He is walking across the Glade to get breakfast when the screeching starts. He glances out of habit and nearly trips over his own leg when he sees three figures wobbling out of the Maze.   
  
He rushes over, something like elation bursting in his chest. Then anger because  _Minho said he would always come back and he didn't but God he did_  and Newt doesn't know what to feel so he just stops in front of them, too stunned to do anything. He mumbles, "You shucking made it."   
  
Minho gives him that smile ( _it has only been one night but Newt thought he lost that smile and it's so much better than he remembers)_  and says, "I told you I'd always come back." Newt laughs a little in amazement and then jumps into action, helping Minho and Thomas carry a damaged Alby.   
  
Newt has never adored Minho more than he does right now.  
  
~~**~~  
  
He cannot believe it. He cannot believe it. He cannot believe it. They are out of the Maze. They lost half of the Gladers in the process and he should really take the time to be properly sad about that but he can't because he cannot believe it. Thomas, Tommy the genius, figured out the Maze.   
  
Thomas did it, really, but Newt can't help but grin so widely at Minho because Minho kept his promise, they are out of the Maze. He practically tackles him when they get on the bus with those people, whoever they are. Minho laughs and hugs him back, just as stunned as Newt, who says, "You got me out."  
  
"I promised."   
  
~~**~~  
  
The Scorch is so ironically different from the Maze that Newt isn't even sure what the point of it is. Newt was never sure of the point, but putting them in the Scorch seems so drastically opposite that he is even more confused.   
  
He walks beside Minho, the sheet over their heads. They steal glances at each other but don't make conversation, not enough water to talk. It's too hot and painful and dry.   
  
Newt almost cries out when Minho is targeted by the lightening strike. He helps Thomas carry him gently into the building, places him on the floor.   
  
Minho is having very bad luck lately, apparently, worse than the rest of them, because not only did he get hit by lightening, but Jorge, the leader of the Cranks, targets him as well. Newt realizes how vital it is that he does not get involved, but it's still hard to watch as Jorge snarls at Minho.   
  
Thomas and Brenda (he doesn't trust her, something's off, he knows it) get separated from them when the food supply is blasted. Jorge takes charge even though Minho is obviously the leader (it's stamped on his skin, for shuck's sake) and they make it back to Thomas and Brenda easily.   
  
Minho is very worried about Newt. His leg can't take much of this, he knows, and it must be killing him. But every time Minho looks over at him, the blond is trudging along, determination etched onto his face, and Minho figures that he must be in love with Newt because all he wants to do is carry him or make him laugh or  _something_.  
  
Minho knows that this is the absolute worst time to realize that he's in love, so he keeps quiet because it's not important anyway, they have bigger fish to fry or something like that.   
  
~~**~~  
  
When Rat Man (Minho hates him, he hates him with all of his being because  _why the shuck can't they cure him fix him something_ ) tells them that Newt is not immune, Newt is quiet. He says he is okay, it's not as if he thought he didn't have it, he was told that he did, he was convinced that he had it, it isn't a surprise but it is. It hurts him, almost as if he can feel the disease crawling up his throat and into his brain. He can't, but that's what it feels like.  
  
Minho is nearly bursting with rage, but he contains it for Newt's sake. He doesn't want Newt to be scared. He has every right to be terrified, of course, but Minho can't stand the thought of Newt as frightened as he was when they were in the Maze. And he is just  _so angry_. He had promised Newt that he would get them out, and for what? What did that accomplish? Newt's going to turn into one of those shucking Cranks, and how is that any better than the Maze? How is that a win?   
  
Minho and Newt pretend it doesn't bother them as much as it does.  
  
~~**~~  
  
Newt can feel it. It's taking over, and he tries so hard to keep it at bay, reduce his anger, but he just  _can't_  and that infuriates him even more. He even attacks Minho, all the while thinking in the back of his head that he doesn't want to, he knows Minho is just trying to help.   
  
Later, when Thomas, Brenda, and Jorge enter Denver, he is even angrier that they left him. The sensible part of his brain (it's very small now, he knows, and wasn't it supposed to take longer than this?) is telling him that of course, they had to leave him because he is infected and it would raise the alarms and he wouldn't get in anyway, but couldn't they think of a better plan? Did they have to choose the one in which he waits outside like a shucking puppy on the doormat?   
  
He is almost grateful when the people come to take him to the Crank palace. He leaves a note so that they (Minho) don't panic when they realize he's gone. He feels so old after all of this. He feels as if he's lived almost a hundred lives and this is the worst one. It is.   
  
~~**~~  
  
Minho is on edge when they get to the Crank palace. He wants to find Newt and take him home. They don't even have a home but if they did, Minho would take him there. They don't even know the meaning of home anymore, but the feeling is still there, sort of, mostly when they're together. It's safer than this shuck world ever could be.   
  
But Newt doesn't want to see them. Minho feels his heart break when Newt points the Launcher at them. He just wants to hold him because he's so  _so sorry_  that he got him out just to have him become this monster. He knows it's not his fault but he feels as if it is because he should have done something  _anything_.   
  
"Newt," he croaks out, determined to not cry in front of Thomas because that is unacceptable, after all they've been through he has only cried when Newt jumped off the wall of the Maze and Minho refuses to believe that this is as close to an end as that was. "Come back with us. You're not supposed to be here."  
  
"Get away from me!" Newt snarls, glaring at Minho. There is hardly anything left of him anymore, and both of them know that. "I'll shoot! I'll shoot and I don't care where it hits!"   
  
Minho hopes he doesn't mean that, hopes he would care if it hit him, but the deadly gleam in Newt's eyes assures him that he is wrong.   
  
He wants to scream at Thomas (wants to  _hurt him_ ) when he says that they need to go. He simply cannot leave Newt here like this, with these freaks, refuses to believe that Newt is becoming one of them because it's not  _fair_. After all of the klunk WICKED has put them through, after all the klunk they've beaten, this is what they get and Minho wants to kill whatever God is watching.   
  
He decides there can't be one. No God would ever allow someone as beautiful as Newt to become such a disaster.   
  
~~**~~  
  
Thomas gets them to Paradise, and Minho should be relieved, happy even, because they really and truly escaped but the only thing he can think is  _Newt would have loved this place._  Newt would have loved the ocean and the trees and the actual sun in the sky, he would have been so perplexed by the changing of the seasons and every smell in the air. They could have been happy. They could have been happy  _together_.   
  
Minho isn't stupid. He saw the note for Thomas. He knows that Newt isn't alive anymore. He refuses to say the word ( _dead_ ) but he knows. And part of him is glad that Newt didn't have to continue living as that monster he had become. He would have hated it, if he was still in his right mind. Minho knows that. He accepts it, mostly.   
  
But he still wakes up every day wishing Newt had fallen asleep beside him. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hasn't been beta'd, blah blah blah, y'know. Thanks for reading!


	5. 2078: Life 90

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "The universe seems to be bending around us, doesn't it?"

In the eighth grade, being a English student in an American school would win Newt all the friends he could ever want. Unfortunately, Newt is not in the eighth grade; Newt is in the third grade, and while kids still find his accent amusing, he fades into the background eventually. He doesn't mind all that much. He does his work and gets the best grades in the class. His teachers usually say something along the lines of this: "Newt is an extraordinary young boy and a delight to have in class. I wish all my other students were like him. However, I do wish he would socialize more."   
  
That statement becomes his catchphrase until his freshman year.   
  
Newt has never had much trouble with friends, mostly because he's never really had any, but it starts to take a toll on him. He starts to realize how alone he is. He wishes he was more outspoken, but in all honesty, he never sees anyone who seems worth talking to.   
  
Until  _he_  comes. He walks in the room like a quiet storm, beautiful and dangerous and frightening when seen by the right eyes. The girls in the class hold their breath because they think he is attractive. Newt holds his breath because he thinks he is a new type of gravity (he's being pulled in and he doesn't even know the boy's name).  
  
Newt blushes fiercely when the new kid looks at him with gleaming eyes and a sideways smirk that causes global warming just by existing. He manages a smile in return, and the kid drops his bag beside the desk that is to Newt's left.   
  
"Hi," he says, something in his voice that's slow and questioning (the new kid felt it too, when he walked in, something about the blond boy in the corner caught his eye, something like familiarity, and he felt like an ocean and new kid loves oceans, he does).   
  
"Hello," Newt replies, trying to hide his grin (he can't).   
  
"I'm Minho."  
  
"Newt."   
  
Minho looks at Newt and chuckles for a minute, but he's not sure why. It seems involuntary (something is nagging him in the back of his mind, he feels as if he's done that exact thing before, and he probably has with someone else, but something feels particularly special about this chuckle, and that sounds crazy but it's true).   
  
"Where did you come from?" Newt asks, trying to make conversation. Contrary to popular opinion, Newt is not a shy boy. He is very outspoken and makes sure the teachers know that in class, but he never feels the need to talk to anyone outside his family and teachers. This boy, Minho, feels different, somehow.   
  
"The hallway," Minho replies swiftly, a smirk on his lips, and Newt glares.   
  
"Slim it, shank."  
  
Minho looks at him as if he's crazy. " 'Slim it, shank'? Is that some secret code or something?"  
  
Newt can't help his giggle. "No, it's something I just started saying."   
  
Minho looks at him for a minute, trying to figure him out (there's not much to go on, admittedly, but Minho feels something tugging every cell in his body, not toward a specific point, just tugging, somewhere, somehow) but he can't, not just yet, so he smiles.   
  
"Alright then. Shank."   
  
~~**~~  
  
It seems that Minho is an attractive force to everyone, not just Newt. Minho makes friends easily, like a comedian makes jokes or oceans make rain. Minho meets Thomas, and then Alby, and then Gally. Newt, of course, has known most of these people since the fourth grade (he knows their average report card grades, their sibling count, their clique, and their personalities from a distance) but it seems that they didn't really know him.   
  
But the way Minho glances over at Newt every few moments, the way his lips perk into the tiniest smile, the way his eyes are always shining assures Newt that he is not being replaced, not like he was anticipating. Minho chats with his other friends, but when it comes down to it, Minho always sits beside Newt at lunch or during free period or after school.  
  
Newt becomes friends with Minho's friends, and he realizes that this is what he was missing all along. He never needed friends, not before, but they did make things easier, sometimes.   
  
They meet up in the cafeteria every day for lunch, all of them, and Thomas sees something while they're eating: Minho looks over at Newt, smiling like always, but they slide their chairs closer together, their arms are brushing, their glances aren't as fleeting. Thomas smiles to himself and doesn't realize exactly what he witnessed, but he thinks it's cute and says nothing.   
  
~~**~~  
  
Minho gets a girlfriend. He meets this girl Sonya, who is strong and smart and funny and Newt keeps searching for ways to hate her but he can't find any. He doesn't even know why he hates her. He sometimes feels jealous when Minho wraps his arm around her waist, and he figures that must be it, he doesn't like that Minho isn't paying as much attention to him.   
  
Newt bites his tongue to keep himself from spitting snide remarks at Sonya, because really, she's a nice girl and under different circumstances, Newt would probably like her. But there's that anger boiling just beneath the surface, as if she crossed a line into his territory and he has to do everything he can to keep himself from releasing the dogs.   
  
Thomas gets closer to Newt, sees that Newt feels left out sometimes. He smiles at him and invites him to play video games and Newt finds himself accepting. Newt begins to realize that Thomas is becoming one of his best friends, and he worries that because of this, he will lose Minho, but he knows (and Thomas knows this too) that Minho is irreplaceable.   
  
Minho shows up at Newt's house one day to tell him that he and Sonya had a fight. Newt tries his best to look sad and comforting, but Minho sees right through it. Still, he doesn't say anything. They just sit and talk about it on Newt's couch, leaning against each other as if their contact would soothe some of the pain both of them were feeling.   
  
Somehow Minho comes to the decision that Sonya just isn't right for him, isn't what he's looking for. He calls her and breaks up with her. It's a gentle conversation, Newt notices, and he realizes that he's very happy about this turnout. He's guilty in the same way that he's happy: too much but not enough.   
  
Minho spends the night with Newt, and they both fall asleep curled under a blanket with a movie playing in the background.  
  
~~**~~  
  
Things fall back into a routine. It's Minho and Newt, always Minho and Newt, and everyone knows that, even those who don't know anything about the two of them. Where one of them is concerned, the other is always involved, even if he's just tucked into the tiniest corner of the room. They're interwoven like strings -- like tightropes, and they walk cautiously, keeping each other's balance when someone starts to tip.   
  
Thomas watches with muted fascination. No one else really notices them, but no one else really knows them as well. Thomas knows that the glint in Minho's eye when he looks at Newt is something special, it's not the same as the glint when he gets a good grade on a test or someone tells a stupid joke. Thomas knows that Newt's smile is typically laughing or joking, but when he smiles at Minho, something changes, the lines on his face smooth themselves out and the corners of his lips curl themselves upward just the slightest and his hands fidget just a little and his cheeks turn a soft pink, the color of his mouth. Thomas notices too much, sometimes, he realizes.  
  
Minho, Newt, and Thomas join the track team. They're instant favorites, "made for running," Coach Janson said with a tricky smile. They grin and gather their tracksuits, all of them feeling a sense of unity about both themselves and the school.   
  
Runners are never the most popular athletes in the school, but mostly everyone knows them anyway. They flash people smiles in the hallway, a wave now and then, and everything is so spectacular that Newt is just waiting for the fallout.   
  
It comes in the form of a pebble.   
  
At practice one day, Newt is running as fast as he can (he simply has to beat Minho's record, he can't let the bloody shank stay so smug all the time), all his strength and will pumping his veins. But the pebble (if only the track had been checked beforehand, everyone curses later) is directly in his lane, and he doesn't see it, it's too small, but it's big enough for his foot to catch it just the wrong way and he tumbles.   
  
The track is situated on top of a small incline, and unfortunately for Newt, his lane is directly on the edge. He rolls down the rocky hill and feels something break. He cries out when he hits the pavement of the road and Minho comes running (if he jumped, he would have taken flight) down the hill, nearly tripping himself, and slides the last few feet on the bottoms of his shoes.   
  
Newt is groaning, there's a gash in his head and leg is is on fire, it feels as if it's exploded and it caught its own shrapnel. Minho is running his hands all over Newt's torso, then down his good leg, then down the bad one, and Newt yells.   
  
Minho is nearly too panicked to think straight, but he does it anyway. He lifts Newt from the ground and runs him back up to the track to Coach Janson, telling him he needs to call for an ambulance.   
  
Later at the hospital, Newt is told that his leg is broken unevenly, and by the looks of it, he may as well just give up on remaining on the track team. Newt clenches his teeth and Minho nearly growls because other than Minho and Thomas, track is all Newt has.  
  
However, Newt is surprisingly calm about the whole ordeal. He tells Minho that it's fine, really, he was wearing himself out too much anyway, and he really needed to focus on school more than anything, so it's all for the best. Thomas (almost) believes him, but Minho sees right through it, sees the disappointment in his best friend's forehead, the smile without the crinkle around his eyes (Minho has always been good at identifying lies, especially those told by Newt). Minho still slides his hand across Newt's, not holding it, just resting it beside it. Newt gives him that special smile (Minho can always see the sign that always comes with it, reading "reserved for Minho" and he loves it, every time).   
  
~~**~~  
  
Over the summer, Minho and Newt are hardly apart more than hours at a time. Track season has ended and neither of them have anywhere else to be. Newt is walking on his own already (he has a limp, but that's much better than that bloody wheelchair or those crutches, he just felt so  _weak_ ) and finds much more joy in swimming than he did in track anyway (the fact that Newt is better at swimming than Minho may contribute to his opinion on the sport, just a little).  
  
Even though Minho is a weaker swimmer than Newt, he still follows Newt to the lake every day he wants to go. He doesn't dislike it in the least. He actually really enjoys it ( _it_  meaning Newt in swimming trucks and wet hair and tanned shoulders and  _that smile_ ).   
  
Thomas joins them nearly half of the time, and he still sees more than he should. He knows he shouldn't sneakily listen in on their cute conversations when he leaves the room to get a snack, but he can't help it, he knows they like each other in more ways than one, and he knows, honestly, that he shouldn't do anything about it. He leaves it alone, but he does make jokes sometimes, about the two of them, just to see their reaction. As far as he can tell, nothing is being kept a secret from him.   
  
He realizes why in the middle of the summer when he spends the night at Minho's house along with Newt. They're just having a night in, just hanging out and watching movies (if any of the other shanks knew about any of this, they would tease them incessantly for making it such a slumber party) and eating popcorn and candy.   
  
Thomas notices the way Minho is looking at Newt out of the corner of his eye. Thomas notices the way Newt is looking back. He squints at them and wonders  _exactly_  what is different between the two of them, what are all of them missing?  
  
Thomas enters the kitchen to get a soda and sees Mrs. Lee, Minho's mother, doing the same thing. He smiles. "Hi."  
  
"Hello," she smiles back. "How are you boys doing?"  
  
"Good," he replies. "We're about to start the second movie."   
  
"You boys and your romance movies," Mrs. Lee shook her head with a chuckle.  
  
"They're not romance movies," Thomas defended. "They're action movies  _with_  romance. There's a difference."   
  
"Oh, yes, I'm sure."   
  
Thomas laughs and grabs his soda. He's about to go back to the other room when he stops. He turns around to face Mrs. Lee again and, before thinking, says, "Is something going on between Newt and Minho?"  
  
Mrs. Lee pauses for a moment, almost surprised, Thomas thinks. Then he also thinks that he definitely should not have asked Minho's  _mother_  that question, of all the people in the world.   
  
But then she smiles, something soft and kind and knowing. "Of course."   
  
Thomas looks at her curiously, wondering how she found out before he did, because he's their best friend he should have known before anyone, but before he can ask, Mrs. Lee says something else that is entirely too true and too heartwarming and almost too sad.  
  
"They just don't know it yet."  
  
~~**~~  
  
 It's three a.m. on the same night, and Minho has fallen asleep on Newt's shoulder, a single arm draped around the boy's waist, and Newt is looking down at him with a fond smile, his fingertips feeling the fringe of Minho's brown hair. Thomas herds all of his courage into his mouth and says, "Do you have a crush on Minho?"  
  
Thomas realizes without actually realizing it that this question has been coming for a long time. Newt knows this too, somewhere deep down that he doesn't like to visit very often.  
  
Newt doesn't say anything. He stops playing with Minho's hair, swallows, blinks. Finally, he replies, "It's late. We should get to sleep."  
  
Thomas grins, takes that as a yes.   
  
~~**~~  
  
 So close,  _so close_. Everything is so close, only inches away from something enchanting and terrifying (their eyes, their breaths, their lips, their hands, their chests,  _so close_ ). The world around them is a smeared watercolor painting, nothing but the two of them is clear anymore, yes, they are in vivid detail, everything else could melt, for all they care.   
  
It had been an argument (a stupid one that shouldn't have been been discussed, now that they think about it). Newt had been bothered all day. He had been quiet and distanced and Minho was getting very annoyed because it felt as if Newt was ignoring him, and he couldn't be having any of that. He tried to ask a few questions without getting frustrated, but Newt was just being so stubborn about it that he couldn't help it. He yelled at one point (he can't remember what he said, not now) and probably said something insulting, he can't be sure.   
  
But somehow things escalated, someone stepped up to someone's face, said something in a quieter tone that meant something completely opposite what was said, and now they are here, so close, breathing, blinking, staring.   
  
The air in the room is chilly from the AC, but Newt and Minho feel warmth dribbling down their skin. Their eyes are attached to each other, as if there is something holding their gazes in place (there is, but they can't place it, don't know anything about anything anymore, their minds have gone blank).   
  
Newt swallows. Minho rolls his lips. They stare. They can feel it (something). It's there, whatever it is, whatever they've been missing this whole time, it's decided to step out from behind the curtain. It had expected raucous applause, cheering, excitement, but all it got was a shaky intake of breath, trembling hands, and pupils dilated to the size of saucers.   
  
Every breath is like an apology but also an act of defiance but also a wish on any star in the sky that happens to be passing over the Earth, they can't be specific right now, they probably can't even remember each other's names, much less their own. Everything is much too quiet, too serene, too much like a scene in a movie, but neither of them can bring himself to care about any of it.   
  
Distance is overrated, they don't want it, who needs distance anyway? They're slowly eradicating it, slowly making sure that none is left between them, and they've almost accomplished it when Newt jerks himself away from the magnetic force field that Minho has created.   
  
Breathing becomes even and deep again, pupils retreat back to normal circumferences, heartbeats slow to a healthy rate, and all of this is good when a doctor is asking you if you've been feeling well lately, but all of this is bad when you're asking yourself if you've been feeling well lately.   
  
No. No, you haven't.  
  
~~**~~  
  
Minho and Newt would love to say they they have forgotten about the incident and moved on, but neither of them are very successful liars. They still think about it when no one is watching (it's all either of them can think about, there's nothing else anymore, what else could be worth contemplating?) and let themselves wonder, for just a millisecond, if they had wanted to change something about it, making something happen that didn't (they were never sure if they liked their answers or not).   
  
Weeks after, nearing the end of summer vacation, things have fallen back into the very same routine (albeit with sly glances and extra smiles and curious thoughts and a bit more physical contact than strictly necessary) that they had always had. They are hardly apart for more than hours at a time, and they are still inseparable, still fundamental components of each other's lives.   
  
It is a scorching day in August and there isn't enough cold air in the world to cool the two of them down to an appropriate temperature, so they grab some towels and walk to the lake. It isn't very far, short enough so that Newt has no trouble traveling it on foot (his leg still gives him trouble, but he's learning to cope with it).  
  
The water is cold and soothing and Minho sighs when he steps into it, then dives beneath the murky surface, his eyes shut tight. Newt follows him underwater, holding his breath as long as he can and coming up just as Minho does (still a better swimmer).   
  
They swim for hours, splashing water in each other's faces and joking and sitting on the edge of the dock. This is what they're doing when it happens.   
  
They're sitting, and the sun is going down after a long day of hard work, and something more than humidity is hanging in the air between them. Neither of them speaks. Newt scrubs his hair with his towel and wipes his face, then tosses the towel backward onto the dock. He looks over at Minho and grins for no apparent reason, but he's sure there is one, somewhere.   
  
Their shoulders are touching, knees knocking as they swing their legs over the edge of the dock, every hint of contact sending jolts into their skin. It's sudden; there is no slow build, no whispers, no confessions, just sudden and desperate.   
  
Minho turns to Newt, takes his head in his hands, and kisses him on the lips, deeply and frightfully. Newt is frozen, but he knows he should sink into Minho's hands, so he does, he falls headfirst into something he can't see, his eyes are closed, but he knows that it's  _beautiful_. Everything is so beautiful and their lips are moving and their skin is wet and their cheeks are burned by the sun but none of that really matters, nothing really matters but the way their hearts are hammering in their chests and the way they feel as if their whole lives have been leading up to something like this, something worth waiting forever for.   
  
In the back of his mind, Newt notes that Minho smells like lake water and sunscreen and his mouth tastes like Kool-Aid and he can't think of anything more appropriate. His hands find Minho's neck and they grip tightly, as if something will send them flying off in separate directions if he doesn't hold on with all he's got. He can't be away from Minho, he realizes, not now, not ever.   
  
Their lips move in something less than harmony, and their noses bump and their teeth click on each other and someone bites someone's lip harder than necessary but neither of them cares, there's nothing to care about but how they're feeling right now, how their hearts are leaping out of their ribs because this is something they never even really knew they wanted (and then come to find out that they didn't even want it, they  _needed_  it). Minho notices in some corner of his mind that this kiss is like everything else about the two of them, so imperfect but so poetic, so unparalleled.   
  
They slowly drift away from each other, detaching their lips and hands and foreheads, but never their eyes. Their lids open at almost the exact same time and they finally see something that had been staring them in the face for so long (themselves). Their breathing is ragged and their veins are pumping blood through them at a pace too fast to be healthy and their eyes are wide with surprise and excitement, because this, this right here, is a high that nothing can ever surpass, this is an adrenaline that remains unequaled.   
  
And they laugh. They laugh until their stomachs hurt because it's easier than deciding what to do next, how to go about determining whatever that was. They don't leave until the moon has replaced the sun in the sky completely and stars begin peeking out from behind their veil of daylight. They gather their towels and walk in silence, crickets and rustling leaves the soundtrack of the night.   
  
At some point during the walk, Minho takes Newt's hand and Newt lets him, he doesn't know why but he does all at the same time, and he's thinking that he doesn't know if he can ever live without Minho. He doesn't think he can.   
  
Minho spends the night again. They eat dinner with Newt's parents (they notice something is different but they've seen it coming too, it's no surprise at this point) and are quiet through that. What are they supposed to say? They have no idea, they don't know what they want to say, they barely even know what they feel, and they know that talking about it would be the intelligent course of action, but they just don't know how to put that into play.   
  
Beautiful things often can't be described in words, especially not something as beautiful as them.   
  
But they're lying down to go to bed, Minho in his sleeping bag on the floor and Newt in his bed when Newt grabs Minho's wrist and says, "Come here."   
  
Minho looks at him strangely but obeys. He stands and leans onto Newt's mattress with one knee and Newt raises an eyebrow, tugging him harder. "No,  _here_ , you bloody shank." Minho chuckles at Newt's vernacular and follows suit, settling into the bed.   
  
Newt is the fist to speak again. "What was that earlier?"  
  
Minho doesn't say anything for a long time, but Newt is trying to be patient. He props his head up on his hand, looking down at Minho, who is staring up at the ceiling. "I don't know."   
  
"You started it."   
  
"You didn't end it."   
  
"I'm just trying to figure out what we are now."   
  
"Friends."  
  
"I don't believe that."   
  
"Why not?"  
  
"You know why."  
  
Neither of them says anything for several minutes. There's just the whisper of breaths in the darkness and blue eyes watching brown ones. Newt comes to the conclusion that Minho is not going to say anything (he never has been good with feelings) so he gathers his courage and takes matters into his own hands. Without warning, he leans down and kisses Minho again, softer this time, but with a purpose. It's almost as if there is an engraving in it that reads, "This is why I can't just be friends with you, this is why, you are why."  
  
Minho kisses him back slowly, thinking it through more this time, trying to analyze the situation because this time he has time, everything is more deliberate instead of desperate. He comes to the conclusion that Newt is something he never wants to let go of (he realizes that he cannot let go of him, he doesn't know what it is, but something is gluing him to Newt, Newt is a glue).   
  
They pull away gently, opening their eyes and seeing everything despite the darkness. Everything is so clear now, how could they have ever missed it before?  
  
~~**~~  
  
Newt and Minho grow up. They go to different colleges and break up because the strain is too much on their relationship. It isn't what either of them wants, they still love each other too much to bare, but it's what they need, at least for now.   
  
Newt becomes a successful lawyer, something he wasn't even interested in until much later in his college career. Minho becomes a police officer, nothing fancy, but he likes it, he likes the danger and the running and the goodness of it. They think of each other all the time, too often to claim that they've moved on (they haven't, not at all, but at least they can get through the days now).   
  
Newt is hired to defend a cop for shooting a kid and almost killing him during a robbery. The cop's name is Teresa Agnes (that name sounds so familiar, he doesn't know why) and Newt genuinely believes she didn't do it on purpose. Everything is going perfectly until Agent Agnes's partner comes to testify.   
  
Newt catches his breath and swallows. He hasn't seen Minho in years, but he knows it's him, he couldn't miss him even in a crowd he's spot those eyes and that smile.   
  
Minho sees Newt and his mouth drops open, then he grins something fantastical and walks over, hands on his hips. "Newt," he says with a tone that is too nervous to be so familiar.   
  
"Minho," Newt replies, smiling back. "How've you been?"  
  
"Good, yeah, good, you?"  
  
"Fine."  
  
"Good."   
  
And they smile at each other for several minutes because this is something entirely unexpected, they never thought they'd see each other again, and they realize that they are still in love with each other after all these years and it's magical.   
  
Newt easily wins the trial and takes Minho out for coffee when court dismisses. Minho gladly accepts and they talk in a way that shows everyone who hears that they are perfectly matched in every way but their fingerprints. They can't seem to get enough of each other, and they don't leave the diner until late in the evening, closing time.   
  
So they walk around, which probably looks pretty awkward, because Newt is still in his suit with his briefcase and Minho is still in his uniform but they can't bring themselves to care.   
  
Minho kisses Newt on the cheek and promises that he'll see him again tomorrow. Newt blushes and agrees, and they go their separate ways, but just for the night, because any longer away from each other would result in something disastrous, they know it.   
  
~~**~~  
  
They fall back into old habits around each other, but it's not a bad thing, they're very happy and they feel like teenagers again and it's wonderful. They stay out until the late hours of the night and they kiss as if it's their first time, even on the thousandth kiss of the night.   
  
Everything just feels so easy around each other, something they've missed, and they can't help but love everything about everything they become.   
  
~~**~~  
  
"The universe seems to be bending around us, doesn't it?"  
  
Minho looks at Newt curiously. "What do you mean?"  
  
Newt shrugs, snuggling closer to Minho on his living room couch. "It just seems like we didn't have any choice in it."  
  
"In what?"  
  
"In us."   
  
Minho purses his lips. "Is that a bad thing?"  
  
"No," Newt replies. He kisses Minho shortly and smiles with his eyes. "No, it isn't."   
  
~~**~~  
  
Newt and Minho have been together for years and they wouldn't have it any other way, everything is perfect and just the way it should be. Their worlds are turning again, and their hearts are whole again and they will never leave each other again, never, because nothing is ever better than what they have right now.   
  
One night, Minho is thinking back to when they broke up during college because things were just too hard, they didn't get to see each other every day anymore, not like they always had, and it was painful, he couldn't stand being away from Newt.   
  
Newt is sleeping beside him silently, like he always does, and Minho has his head propped against his hand, watching Newt's face with content. He vows to himself that he will see Newt every day for the rest of his life, no matter what.  
  
And he does.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> AHHH I FINISHED IT GUYS I FINISHED IT I'M SO HAPPY  
> Anyway, sorry it took so long, I had written the first four chapters over Thanksgiving break, and then school started again so I got sidetracked, but I finished it! I hope the happy ending is satisfying enough for you to forgive me for the unhappy ones.. maybe? I don't know, I don't feel as if it makes up for anything, but I am a wee bit proud of it just because I finally finished something.   
> As always, it's not beta'd, so let me know of any errors, and thanks so much for reading! I've had so much fun and tears writing this and I hope you enjoyed it.


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